The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Wednesday 12 May.
“With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will update the House on our response to Covid.
The patience and hard work of the British people have combined with the success of the vaccination programme to reduce deaths and hospitalisations to their lowest levels since last July and, from Monday, England will ease lockdown restrictions in line with step 3 of our road map. This will amount to the single biggest step of our journey back towards normality. But after everything we have endured, we must be vigilant, because the threat of this virus remains real and new variants—including the one first identified in India, which is of increasing concern here in the UK—pose a potentially lethal danger. Caution has to be our watchword.
Our country, like every country, has found itself in the teeth of the gravest pandemic for a century, which has imposed heartbreaking sorrow on families around the world, with more than 127,000 lives lost in the United Kingdom alone. Our grief would have been still greater without the daily heroism of the men and women of our National Health Service, the protection of our vaccines—already in the arms of more than two thirds of adults across the UK—and the dedication of everyone who has followed the rules and sacrificed so much that we cherish.
Amid such tragedy, the state has an obligation to examine its actions as rigorously and as candidly as possible and to learn every lesson for the future, which is why I have always said that, when the time is right, there should be a full and independent inquiry. I can confirm today that the Government will establish an independent public inquiry on a statutory basis, with full powers under the Inquiries Act 2005, including the ability to compel the production of all relevant materials and take oral evidence in public under oath.
In establishing the inquiry, we will work closely with the devolved Administrations, as we have done throughout our pandemic response. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has this morning spoken to the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, and the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland, to begin those conversations.
Every part of our United Kingdom has suffered the ravages of this virus, and every part of the state has pulled together to do battle against it. If we are to recover as one Team UK, as we must, then we should also learn lessons together in the same spirit. We will consult the devolved Administrations before finalising the scope and detailed arrangements, so that this inquiry can consider all key aspects of the UK response.
This process will place the state’s actions under the microscope, and we should be mindful of the scale of that undertaking and the resources required to do it properly. The exercise of identifying and disclosing all relevant information, the months of preparation and retrospective analysis, and the time that people will have to spend testifying in public—in some cases for days—will place a significant burden on our NHS, on the whole of Government, on our scientific advisers, and on many others. We must not inadvertently divert or distract the very people on whom we all depend in the heat of our struggle against this disease. The end of the lockdown is not the end of the pandemic. The World Health Organization has said that the pandemic has now reached its global peak and will last throughout this year. Our own scientific advisers judge that, although more positive data is coming in and the outlook is improving, there could still be another resurgence in hospitalisations and deaths.
We also face the persistent threat of new variants, and should those prove highly transmissible and elude the protection of our vaccines they would have the potential to cause even greater suffering than we endured in January. In any case, there is a high likelihood of a surge this winter when the weather assists the transmission of all respiratory diseases and the pressure on our NHS is most acute.
I expect that the right moment for the inquiry to begin is at the end of this period, in spring 2022. I know that some in this Chamber and many bereaved families will be anxious for this inquiry to begin sooner, so let me reassure the House that we are fully committed to learning lessons at every stage of this crisis. We have already subjected our response to independent scrutiny, including 17 reports by the independent National Audit Office and 50 parliamentary inquiries, and we will continue to do so—we will continue to learn lessons, as we have done throughout the pandemic. None the less, no public inquiry could take place fast enough to assist in the very difficult judgments that will remain necessary throughout the rest of this year and the remainder of the pandemic. We must not weigh down the efforts of those engaged in protecting us every day and thereby risk endangering further lives.
Instead, this inquiry must be able to look at the events of the past year in the cold light of day and identify the key issues that will make a difference for the future. It will be free to scrutinise every document, to hear from all the key players, and to analyse and learn from the breadth of our response. That is the right way, I think, to get the answers that the people of this country deserve, and to ensure that our United Kingdom is better prepared for any future pandemic.
Entirely separately from the inquiry, there is a solemn duty on our whole United Kingdom to come together and cherish the memories of those who have been lost. Like many across the Chamber, I was deeply moved when I visited the Covid memorial wall opposite Parliament, and I wholeheartedly support the plan for a memorial in St Paul’s cathedral, which will provide a fitting place of reflection in the heart of our capital.
I also know that communities across the whole country will want to find ways of commemorating what we have all been through, so the Government will support their efforts by establishing a UK commission on Covid commemoration. This national endeavour, above party politics, will remember the loved ones we have lost, honour the heroism of those who have saved lives and the courage of front-line workers who have kept our country going, celebrate the genius of those who created the vaccines, and commemorate the small acts of kindness and the daily sacrifice of millions who stayed at home, buying time for our scientists to come to our rescue. We will set out the commission membership and terms of reference in due course.
In telling the whole story of this era in our history, we will work, again, across our United Kingdom, together with the devolved Administrations, to preserve the spirit that has sustained us in the gravest crisis since the Second World War, resolving to go forwards together and to build back better. I commend this Statement to the House.”
My Lords, the Prime Minister’s confirmation of a statutory inquiry into the Government’s initial and ongoing handling of the pandemic is welcome. I think that all of us, especially the bereaved families of the almost 130,000 people who have died and those suffering physical and mental health consequences, need answers, as well as assurances that, where there have been mistakes, everything that can be done will be done to ensure they are not repeated.
Yet the language in the Statement about when this process will even start could have come straight from the mouth of Sir Humphrey Appleby in a “Yes Minister” script. I quote: “when the time is right”, “in due course”. All that is missing is “in the fullness of time”. I appreciate that the terms of reference need to be agreed and the appointments made to conduct the inquiry and support its work, but why on earth would there be such a long delay even to start the process? I do not understand the logic in delaying for at least a year until—a very imprecise timescale—“spring 2022”. We have all watched Ministers squirm at the Dispatch Box as they try to explain what they really meant when they said that something would be ready by spring and it is not ready even though it is August.
The Prime Minister embraced a new watchword in his Statement. He said “caution”—which we do not often hear in statements from him and which we know is not a word that comes easily to him, but he is clearly very aware of the dangers of new variants mutating and of a third wave of infections next winter. Given that, why not start the inquiry process as soon as possible in order to learn the lessons as soon as possible? If it is the case that delays in implementing lockdowns or other measures meant that the virus spread or mutated more quickly, leading to more lives being lost and more restrictions being imposed for longer, including lockdowns, and if that will help avoid a third wave this autumn or at least help us understand how better to respond, surely the work of the inquiry must be undertaken as quickly as possible. The last thing we need now is a further pause in learning from any mistakes.
My Lords, I begin by apologising to the House that, in order for me to get home tonight, I have to be on a train at King’s Cross at 8.03 pm. Therefore, I may have to leave before the end of all the supplementary questions, for which I apologise. I will undertake to watch them tomorrow morning.
For some time, we on these Benches have been calling for a committee of inquiry to be established to examine the actions of the Government in handling the Covid crisis and to consider what lessons can be learned for the future, so the fact that the Government are now setting one up is very much to be welcomed. However, I am somewhat dismayed at the proposed timescale. In response to the Prime Minister’s Statement, the relatives of Covid victims have strongly argued that we need to be learning lessons now, not at some distant future date—and they are surely right.
The Government’s argument in favour of delay until next year is that we should not distract people who are
“in the heat of our struggle against this disease”.
However, without being complacent, by the autumn, unless the vaccines prove ineffective against any new variants that might by then emerge, we will not be in the heat of the struggle as we have seen it in recent months. In any event, there are many aspects of the inquiry—such as the planning, procurement or decision-making processes within government—that could easily be investigated now, without jeopardising the NHS’s ability to manage a further wave. To delay starting the inquiry by a year is simply unjustified.
The lengths of public inquiries vary; the 69 held since 1990 have varied between 45 days and 13 years. The average was two and a half years. It is therefore highly unlikely that this inquiry will be conducted and concluded before the next election. This will mean that the Government will avoid any accountability for their actions, for by the time we get around to the following general election, people and events will have moved on. More importantly, such a long timetable will enable the Government to hide behind the fact that the inquiry is ongoing, and delay making the changes needed to avoid repeating some of the errors of the past 15 months.
I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their comments. I am afraid that I will not be able to go into the detail of the inquiry that both have asked for, but I will do my best to give the information that I can. The inquiry will begin its work in spring 2022. I do not know where the noble Lord got July from, but even I accept that that stretches the word “spring”. It will be funded by the Government.
The noble Lord asked about details. It will be for the chair of the inquiry to decide how to deliver it. They will be independent and will deliver it in line with the terms of reference and in accordance with the requirements set out in the Inquiries Act. That legislation sets out, for instance, that the chair will be appointed by the sponsoring Minister. It will all be done on a statutory basis, with full formal powers.
The noble Baroness and the noble Lord asked about timing. I am well aware of the differences of views on timing, and I understand calls for things to move forward. However, we believe that this is the right timescale, because the end of the lockdown will not be the end of the pandemic. The WHO has said that the pandemic has reached its peak globally, so we are certainly not through it. As the noble Baroness rightly said, we are uncertain about the effect of future waves, and new variants continue to present risks. We believe that a premature inquiry risks distracting the NHS, as the noble Baroness said, and Ministers, officials and departments from the ongoing response. An inquiry could not operate at sufficient pace to assist us in making the judgments that we might need to make in the medium term. So we believe that spring 2022, when we are on the other side of the pressures of this winter, which I hope will be far fewer than last winter, is the right time to start the inquiry. We are committed to that.
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I hope that the noble Baroness does not repeat the reasons given in the Statement for this delay. The Prime Minister basically says that it because of the burdens that the inquiry would place on the National Health Service. I can understand that, but surely it applies more accurately to the wholesale NHS and public health reorganisation that the Government are about to embark on than to an inquiry which so many in the National Health Service support.
I hope that I am wrong on this—I have said that I want to be proved wrong—but can she give me an assurance that there is no attempt to delay the report beyond a general election, given that, at the same time, plans have been announced to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act? If the noble Baroness is able to give an assurance on that, that would be really helpful and would give a lot of reassurance to colleagues.
The noble Baroness knows that there is increasing concern about a rise in cases of the so-called Indian variant of Covid within the UK, including the highly transmissible B.1.617.2, which has now spread rapidly in areas of the north-west of England and elsewhere. Can she tell the House something about the impact that this is likely to have on the Government’s road map out of lockdown, including the national restrictions that are due to be lifted next Monday?
Are Ministers considering a return to tiers and maintaining or increasing restrictions in Covid hotspots? She will understand why I am asking—it is deeply concerning to people living in these communities, many of whom, in the north-west at least, have remained subject to restrictions throughout most of the past 14 months.
Will she also say something tonight about the latest increases in surge testing and surge vaccinations? Are there now plans to extend this further than Bolton and, more recently, Blackburn? Until now, we have seen vaccines rolled out at the same pace across the whole of England, on the advice of the JCVI, but extra doses of the vaccines have now been given to Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire to extend the vaccine rollout to all over-18s in the area. Is this part of a new surge vaccination programme to deal with the rise of the Indian variant, and will that be rolled out in other areas where the variant may crop up?
Could she also tell the House what assessment the Government have made of the impact that not adding India to the red list for international travel has had on the arrival of this variant in the UK? Why did the Government not implement a comprehensive hotel quarantine policy when the variant was evident in other countries that were transporting visitors to the UK?
The Government have repeatedly pledged to be driven by data, not dates—yet we do not yet know the full extent to which many variants, including those identified in Brazil, South Africa and India, impact on vaccine effectiveness. A lot of the information is very positive and encouraging, but it would be helpful to know what research the Government are doing and how accurate some of that information is. Is she also able to say what information and advice the Government have received regarding the potential risk? Can she update the House on the rollout of booster doses that will be available later this year?
On a related matter—she may want to write to me about this; I am quite happy with that—it would be helpful to have an update on the Government’s plans for addressing the persisting disparities in vaccination uptake among different ethnic groups. She will share our concern on this issue. It has particularly affected the social care workforce, which has had a lower take-up.
More broadly, with the World Health Organization referring to the shocking disparity in vaccination rates between countries, and Chris Whitty saying that the prevention of new variants involves the need to get on top of the pandemic, I ask what role the UK is playing in leading the global response? One Minister said very early on that none of us is safe until all of us are safe, and we obviously want to see an international rollout of the vaccine.
All of us are desperate to get to a place where the virus is behind us and we can accelerate the return to living and working more normally. However, we need to do this safely, and our understanding of what did and did not work at the start of this pandemic is an urgent and essential part of that process. So we welcome the inquiry and think that it is the right decision to take, but it needs to be started sooner than next spring.
The Government’s mind is clearly made up on the timescale, but I wonder whether the noble Baroness the Leader of the House could be a bit more specific about some aspects of it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked, when the Government say “spring 2022”, what is their definition of “spring”? Also, can the Minister specifically deny rumours from within Whitehall that civil servants working on the inquiry have been told to expect it to start next July? Have the Government any thoughts on how long the inquiry might last? Will they set even an indicative deadline for it to report?
Will they encourage the inquiry to produce interim reports on specific aspects of its work that could be completed first—an approach adopted in some other, analogous inquiries? For example, it would be sensible to know at the earliest possible moment what went wrong in the planning for the pandemic. We need those lessons to be learned before the next one arrives. It would also be sensible, and possible, to have an early report on procurement practices to ensure that the excesses of the last 15 months are never repeated. Can the noble Baroness give any indication of who might lead it? If she cannot, can she give us any indication of when we might know? Yesterday, it emerged that the Department of Health and Social Care has already concluded an internal inquiry which the Government are refusing to publish. Why is this, and will they now do so?
The urgency of the inquiry might not be so great if we felt confident that the Government had already learned the lessons of the past 15 months, but I am afraid that we do not. I will take just two examples. First, the delay in implementing the stricter measures that were urgently required in the autumn has been replicated by the delay in adding India to the red list. This has led to a large number of travellers from India entering the UK while the virus was rampant in that country, and to its inevitable importation here. We need a timelier approach to dealing with such new threats. The inquiry could explain why that has been lacking until now.
Secondly, the central test and trace system is now being disbanded, with most of the central PHE staff having been sacked, leaving open how any future surges will be managed. We need an ongoing, effective test and trace system to deal with new variants and localised outbreaks. The inquiry could shine a light on how that might be achieved.
Finally, on the creation of a UK commission on Covid commemoration, I completely agree that a national memorial in St Paul’s Cathedral is a good idea, but I gently suggest to the Government that the best memorial of this crisis would be a commitment to paying properly those staff working in the NHS and social care, whose dedication has been phenomenal and without whose efforts the effects of the pandemic would have been even more destructive.
I will also say that we are continuously learning. While there has not been an inquiry, our whole approach in responding to the pandemic has been to draw up and develop plans based on experience. It is wrong to suggest that we are totally blind in what we are doing; we are learning lessons.
The noble Lord asked about the informal review. As is standard practice across departments, an informal lessons-learned review was carried out by DHSC officials to inform future working, so that we continually learn and improve our approach. It was not a formal or overarching review of the pandemic, but an internal, departmental ways-of-working review.
The noble Baroness rightly asked about the Indian variant. Cases have risen and we are watching it closely. We are assessing the threats but, at this stage, there is no evidence that the Indian variant is resistant to vaccines. This is something that we will keep under review. We are continuing to deploy surge and community testing efforts to find and isolate cases where there is evidence of community transmission, in addition to the comprehensive work under way to track and trace all contacts of cases.
The noble Baroness asked about the road map. At this stage, we are continuing with it and the next step is on Monday. We will keep things under review, but the road map remains the programme that we intend to follow, at this point. Having gone through the pandemic, as all of us have, I cannot make categorical commitments. All I can say is that the road map remains the programme that we are pursuing.
While we have been successful in closing vaccination disparities between different ethnic groups, I will write to the noble Baroness with the latest data, as she asked. I do not have it to hand.
The noble Baroness also asked about booster shots. As we complete the programme for first vaccinations, we are ramping this up. We are working with our current vaccine suppliers and new ones, such as CureVac, to work out which vaccines will be effective as boosters. We signed an agreement for a further 60 million doses of Pfizer, which will be part of the booster programme. That work is in train.
The noble Baroness also rightly asked about the global picture on COVAX. She and the House will know that we are one of the biggest donors to COVAX and we are working through it to ensure global access to vaccines. We have contributed £540 million, which has helped over 70 middle-income and lower-income countries receive doses. At the virtual G7 meeting in February, we encouraged other donors to give more money. At the G7 summit later, we will continue to play that role.
The noble Lord rightly asked about nurses’ pay and talked about the fantastic work that they have done during the pandemic. As he knows, we have committed to providing NHS staff a pay lift at a time when this has been paused in the wider public sector. We have given written evidence to the independent pay review, which is common practice, and we are now waiting to hear back its recommendations, which I cannot pre-empt. We will consider the recommendations when they are given to us.